cool hunters

I absolutely loved this article. I found it very interesting and truthful. The fact is, cool cannot be manufactured it can only be observed, as rule two of cool states. Cool is all about setting some sort of trend, making a statement and then spreading the word. The article mentions how cool has its "innovators" then its "early followers" (the group of people that others look up to) then more followers as they see the "sophisticated" or highly respected (in their opinion) group doing it, and so. The problem, once the rest of the population starts catching onto something, it just isn't cool anymore. I like the idea that you have to find "cool people first and cool things after" because "cool people are a constant" and cool things are indeed a variable. There will always be that guy or girl doing something out of the ordinary. Whether it is a clothing choice, a music choice, how they choose to spend their leisure time, etc. someone is always testing the waters and pushing the boundaries of what it means to be cool. It is like the example of the Joe Regular in a coffee shop where everyone there has blue hair. Now this probably isn't one's typical impression of "coffee-shop goers" but if this is the trend that has caught on and this is what people are doing, well then it is no longer so outrageous and innovative to have blue hair and in fact, the Joe Regular becomes the "cool kid" because he is set apart now from his peers. This is what I like about cool. It is doing something other people aren't doing. Another example from my own life and our culture today: leggings. Maybe leggings were cool in the beginning, that is how all things start; a small group of people are trying out new ideas (or maybe reviving old ideas) and slowly people start to catch on and companies work to market the ideas (thanks to their coolhunters) and then there is this big explosion of a trend, in this case "the legging explosion." Point is, leggings are not cool anymore because everbody is doing it. Most would argue that if everyone is doing it then it probably is cool, but really it is just mainstream marketing selling what was cool yesterday, today. Truly cool people will tell you that most people are just "running after their friends" and are not really cool themselves because, as the cool hunters say, "if the [non-cool] tried to attain it [cool] then it would no longer be cool."